Home/I Saved the Villain and Fell Asleep/ch 3

Chapter 3

It was two months ago that I realized I had been born as a character in a book.

That memory came to me without any warning.

I had simply sprawled out on the sofa and woken up from a nap, yet everything felt unfamiliar. So much so that I wondered if I was still dreaming.

The ceiling in my view was impossibly high. It felt less like an ordinary home and more like some ancient castle.

A large carpet covered the floor, and the ceiling, adorned with geometric patterns, was so extravagant it made me question whether it really was a ceiling. And what in the world was that enormous chandelier?

I blinked my eyes for a long while. If I had woken up in an unfamiliar place, I should have been afraid, but strangely, it felt familiar.

I already recognized this place as home.

The moment I thought, Where am I?, I heard the sound of pages turning. I sat up and turned my gaze toward the sound. A large holographic newspaper was fluttering on its own, flipping through pages.

At the time, my head was so chaotic it made my stomach churn. It wasn't that new memories were being overlaid on existing ones—it felt as if veiled memories were slowly being revealed.

Memories from my past life and my current life tangled together in a jumble.

My name is Algenprina Hariella.

In the novel Cold Heart that I had read in my previous life, I was a supporting character who died in vain while trying to take revenge on the worst dark mage, Czerban Caelius.

Of all the characters to reincarnate as, why did it have to be one who dies like that?!

But just because I realized I had been reincarnated didn't mean my family suddenly felt awkward or distant. Because...

"Hariella! Come here for a moment!"

The face of my mother calling me from over there was exactly the same as the mother in my memories.

And it wasn't just my mother. My father and my brothers were exactly the same too—not just in appearance, but in personality and way of speaking as well.

At my mother's call, I closed the notebook I had been scribbling in. Inside the notebook were traces of my efforts over the past two months to figure out how to survive.

In the novel Cold Heart, the Algenprina ducal house falls when the entire family, except for Hariella, dies in a large fire of unknown cause.

Unable to remember every detail of the original story, all I can do now is use the minimal information I have to survive alongside my family.

Using everything I have.

"Hari?"

Mother came out looking for me when I didn't answer her call. She bent down and placed her hand on my forehead.

"Why are you so dazed? You don't have a fever... Are you feeling unwell somewhere?"

When I burrowed into her arms without a word, she seemed to think I was being clingy and patted my back with a warm hand.

Seeing her laugh as she held me made my nose sting. I couldn't possibly let my mother, my father, or my brothers die.

Knowing a way to avoid death—was I supposed to just sit back and do nothing?

In the original story, Hariella was a minor supporting character who often appeared to envy the female protagonist's powerful unique magic, which she needed to confront her enemy, Czerban Caelius.

So much so that readers criticized her as a cliché character.

However, her unique magic was far from cliché. Because it was a club that was hideously ugly and unrefinedly sturdy.

If that club had simply been unsightly, my future would have been bleak. If I hadn't bothered to read the behind-the-scenes setting collection uploaded after the series ended, an even more hopeless future would have awaited me.

What surprised the readers wasn't some hidden secret about the protagonist, but the "Author's Notes" section containing applications of the unique magic that appeared in the novel.

Among them, readers who learned of the hidden ability within Algenprina Hariella's unique magic couldn't help but be astounded.

Who would have thought that what seemed like a useless, ugly club was actually a "Goblin Club" with insane performance?

With this, wouldn't I be able to survive against Czerban Caelius?

Czerban Caelius.

The worst dark mage in the original work, a genius born with not one but two powerful unique magics.

It's already hard enough to obtain even one unique magic, but giving two to a single person is just ridiculous. And they weren't weak abilities either—both were deadly!

"Flame" and "Corrosion."

Flame alone is threatening, but on top of that, he has magic that rots objects into decay. Truly abilities befitting a villain.

And I have to survive against someone like that. Isn't this second life too hard?

"Ha..."

"What's with the sigh? Are you sure you're not sick?"

"Mother."

The ducal house falls to fire when Hariella turns nineteen. Though it's called a fire of unknown cause, it's painfully clear who started it.

There was only one person in the entire empire capable of causing a large-scale fire that could bring down a ducal house in a single day.

"I spared your life, yet you hasten your own death."

That was the last words Hariella heard from Czerban Caelius just before she died.

How can I overturn this ending...?

Right now, our family was not at the ducal estate, but at a villa located halfway between the capital and the duchy. Mother's frail health had been particularly poor this year, so we had come here for her to recuperate in a quiet place.

The village a ten-minute carriage ride away was peaceful, and behind the villa there was a gentle hill perfect for walks and a small lake. The problem was that this place was surrounded by mountains.

...Is this it? Could it be that we never return to the ducal estate until I turn nineteen, and the fire happens here?

Come to think of it, if the fire had broken out at the ducal castle, the Duke and Duchess wouldn't have been unable to escape. There are so many magic circles installed to defend against external attacks...

The villa also had magic circles installed, but they weren't as robust as those at the ducal castle, so it was uncertain whether they could properly protect us. But I couldn't throw a tantrum and insist we return to the duchy immediately with my sick mother!

"Now, snap out of it and come eat some hotcakes. You've been singing about wanting them since yesterday."

"Okay. But where's Brother?"

"He went down to the village to meet a friend he recently made."

I shoved a thickly baked hotcake into my mouth and fell deep in thought.

The only thing I knew about the danger ahead was "fire." If it's fire, I need water to counter it, but the water-related unique magic was already assigned to the original female protagonist, so that's not in the cards for me...

The one fortunate thing is that my Goblin Club doesn't burn. Because it's sturdy.

If I can make good use of the subspace within the Goblin Club, I feel like I could somehow manage... but how am I supposed to block a disaster-level fire?

"Oh, right. Hari."

"Hm?"

After being lost in thought for a while, I turned my gaze at the sound of Mother calling my name.

"Try not to go into the mountains alone without Chalet."

"Eh?"

My head tilted involuntarily. Chalet is Mother's handmaiden, and the head of the household staff at the villa, no less.

I'm just going out to play by myself—why would I need to bring Chalet?

"I heard there have been signs of outsiders in this area. Just in case, you need to be careful."

"Outsiders? Not villagers?"

"Yes. So even if you manage to ditch Chalet, don't you dare ditch Shady. Understood?"

As if she already knew I'd try to slip away from Chalet and go to the mountains, Mother spoke to me in a firm, certain voice.

How on earth did she know? Chalet nags way too much!

"How could I ditch Shady? I don't even know where he is!"

Shady is the shadow knight of the Algenprina ducal house. I know he's nearby, but I have no way of knowing exactly where he is.

"It's fine to run around and have fun, but be careful."

"I'm more worried about your health, Mother!"

"Look at you, talking like that."

Mother let out a scoff, as if she found it quite absurd. But she didn't really argue with me. Probably because she knew I wasn't wrong.

Mother hated moving around. She was always sitting or lying down, so of course her stamina was weaker than mine! If only her unique magic had been more active.

Mother's unique magic was related to stars—she could float stars in the sky or read faint omens through them.

It's truly beautiful and mesmerizing magic, truly wondrous! But it's not an ability that contributes to her health in any way.

Anyway, for these reasons, I let Mother's words go in one ear and out the other as I left the house.

"Don't go too deep into the mountains today, and don't ditch Shady!"

"I said I got it! I'm going now!"

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